Not sure how I feel about the Arcana

[wwwJam]

While the Arcana is an interesting replacement to the Mirror of Night, it feels very limiting.
The first 3 rows can more or less be activated comfortably by the time you max your Grasp, barring one or two of them. In doing so, you typically also activate Divinity (chance for boons to be epic).
Those first 3 rows, plus Divinity, have more or less the necessities for success, so that's good.

But that means you almost never want to disable any of them to turn on anything in the bottom 2 rows, so no rerolls, no additional money to start a run etc., barred from their prohibitively high costs and your limited Grasp. Even if you have one card in the first 3 rows you can live without, it's often not enough to afford much in the bottom 2 rows on its own.

Obviously, this wasn't the case with the Mirror of Night. You could use the entire thing. The choice wasn't on what you did or didn't take, but instead what you would swap the alternatives buffs for. You felt stronger all the way down, and then you had options.
With the Arcana, once those first 3 rows are filled out, you're basically done. The "options" are things that are reliable, and things that are not. That extra money may not mean anything, those door/boon rerolls can result in complete bupkis, as anyone who played the first game extensively can attest. It sucks not having Rare boons, but Divinity will just have to do, because I cannot find something to give up to have 5 free Grasp. Origination would be really nice, but it's not guaranteed you'll even get 2 reliable curses anyway (but at least it's only 3 Grasp, so you may be able to squeeze it in).

Obviously it's EA, things are subject to change, yadda yadda yadda, I know. But for me, this system feels a bit disappointing as-is.

What do you think of the Arcana currently? Do you take any of those bottom cards or do you keep a comfortable, reliable build? What do you sacrifice in the first 3 rows if you do take any of the bottom 2 rows' cards?

[Overeagerdragon]

?
You can upgarde your grasp though.... I have 30 capacity which is plenty to activate maybe 75% of all of the tarots on that 5x5 grid

And you couldn't use everything on the mirror either... seeing as EVERY perk on the mirror ALSO had a "flipside" perk and you could only use either of the 2

EDIT: Your example of the boon for extra damage if you have 2 curses is a perfect example... I don't use that one... I don't use extra run speed or extra mana + Health either so that frees up enough to use some "flex passives"

[UNBREAKABLE]

30 grasp seems enough to use the most beneficial cards with room for things that benefit your playstyle.

[Forblaze]

Why are you insisting on picking everything in order?

This is my current build and it takes about as much from the top as it does the bottom

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3246063324

When I get 30 grasp, I intend to drop the huntress and death (they conflict anyway) for the fates and champions

[wwwJam]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Why are you insisting on picking everything in order?

This is my current build and it takes about as much from the top as it does the bottom

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3246063324

When I get 30 grasp, I intend to drop the huntress and death (they conflict anyway) for the fates and champions

I don't insist on it, they just seem the most consistently reliable to me. Of the first 3 rows, I don't take Death or Strength, though I may end up replacing Night with Death (as Hexes are... ehhhhh at the moment) so I can get Origination, but that's about all the wiggle room I can find for myself.

It may be that I'm alone on my feelings on the Arcana, and that's fine. I did ask, after all. I'll see about trying other loadouts at some point. For now I guess my own approach is more focused on consistency than potential.

[Soulcatcher]

https://imgur.com/a/xFgFI6l

here is my setup for daggers, I have rerolls only for boons, not for rooms, and unfortunately no start money.